“Being in the utility business we have to pothole utilities all the time; whether it’s a gas line, fibreoptic, telephone cable, we use a Vac-Tron vacuum excavator 90 per cent of the time to verify utilities so we don’t hit them,” said Rock Underground Founder Adam Rock.

The LP 873 SDT vacuum excavator features a Yanmar 49 hp Tier 4 final engine with 1,000 CFM vacuum blower for both wet and dry applications.

“I chose high CFM obviously for the capability of what it can do sucking up the dirt,” said Mr Rock.

“Everybody can buy the water pressure, everybody can buy the blower, but the technology of the unit itself, the trailer setup, and the power it has, is why we choose Vac-Tron.”

In addition to the technology, the unit is a multifunctional machine that saves time and manpower.

“So, you take five guys on a jobsite and shovel all day, if something is five feet (1.5 m) deep, it can take an hour to find one utility.

“With a Vac-Tron you can find it in two minutes and there you go, you don’t need five guys on one job, you can take three guys and a Vac-Tron and run a whole jobsite out in an hour versus a four-hour day, so it’s more efficient.

“There are other benefits of using it too; you can clean the machines, wash off other equipment, we even use it for pulling mule string through existing pipes, little things like that that you don’t think you could use it for, but you can.”

Starting this afternoons session with a presentation on ‘Standards’ is Don Ridgers @donridgersltd. Don’s presentation will shortly be available to view on the UKSTT YouTube channel... Retweeted by Trenchless Int Mag